


any ghost'll do sure

by ohliamylia



Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 14:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20009947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohliamylia/pseuds/ohliamylia
Summary: Post-show. Life goes on. (Death does too.) Everybody processes. (Even demons.)Or, Beetlejuice has 1% feelings and 0% social skills.





	any ghost'll do sure

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I've done this

Not all of the Maitlands' earthly possessions are shit, and not all of their hobbies deserve to shrivel up like a dream deferred, or at least that's what they determine on a journey that begins with Adam being too hesitant to use a telescope like a baseball bat while Lydia tosses pottery at him and ends with the three of them on the roof while Barbara pages through the telescope manual, Lydia cracks the spine on a book of astronomy, and Adam fiddles with knobs and peers through the eyepiece.

"Well, I found the moon," he declares proudly, dusting off his hands like he's just invented pizza delivery by drone or video doorbells. Lydia takes his spot, and his hand settles cold and comforting on her shoulder, keeping her steady as she squints into the telescope.

"Kinda hard to miss."

"But it's a great start," Barbara contributes, setting aside the manual and taking her turn to look. "It's in focus and everything!" She and Adam share a high-five, a low-five, some convoluted gestures, and a hip bump in an increasingly nerdy victory handshake-thing they've constructuted as they celebrate their post-death lives. It ends with an emphatic _Maitlands two-point-oh_ under their breath and Lydia hides her eyeroll and smile behind her tome.

She's happy to see them happy, and she envies their ability to forge ahead. It's one thing to resolve to start moving on from your Dead Mom, and another thing to actually do it, and even though she tries not to be deliberately preoccupied with death and the Netherworld, she finds herself revisiting it - metaphorically - a lot. She's taking steps forward, but it feels like she's taking so many more back.

"You know what we should look at," she says slowly, the corner of her mouth twitching, and the Maitlands look at her from where they've been giggling about nailing their victory routine. Lydia fans the pages of her book, flipping backwards through the alphabet until she lands on a page. _Betelgeuse (red supergiant),_ the page says at the top, and she flips it to show them.

Adam scrunches his nose and Barbara looks as though she's just taken a sip of kombucha. "Lydia," she starts, sounding just as sour, but any actual protest seems to fail her.

"Don't you ever think about him?" Lydia aims for curious and hits minor desperation by mistake, cringing slightly as she hears the strain in her voice. "Don't you wonder what he's doing?"

"No," Barbara says sternly, at the same time that Adam sighs, "All the time.

"I don't _want_ to," he clarifies quickly off a strange look from Barbara. "But… he kind of left a mark, you know?" He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck, and Lydia impulsively throws her arms around him. She feels his hand flutter and settle on her back, rubbing small circles.

"I'm sure he's… fine?" he offers, hesitating. "Being a big old creepy jerk down in the Netherworld somewhere."

It's a weight off her chest, knowing she isn't alone, and that's the end of it, she thinks, they've acknowledged their shared trauma and they can really start cleaning up the emotional mess Beetlejuice left in his wake, until one night she wakes up to two frantic whispering voices and one annoyed abrasive voice that seems to keep forgetting it's trying to be quiet.

"--mom would resurrect me and kill me again, which, _thanks_ for giving her _that_ idea--"

"--I can't," Barbara, Lydia parses, "--too similar, it's weird, it would be weird, right?"

Lydia struggles to blink away her sleep, eyes watering at the sickly green light casting long shadows across her bedroom.

"I'll do it," the not-scratchy voice says, Adam, and Lydia sits up on her elbow, scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand.

"What are you _doing_." She glances at the figure wedged in the doorway to the Netherworld, and as her eyes adjust she sees his widen with comical fear, mouth pulling down into a grimace.

"Hey, uh, kid," Beetlejuice says, looking downcast, ducking behind the doorframe a little, scuffing his foot into the floor and then checking surreptitiously to see if he's garnering any sympathy.

"What are you doing in my room." 

Beetlejuice heaves a put-upon sigh and beckons Adam to the door - Lydia can tell now that he's blocking the entrance with his body, keeping the Maitlands out, maybe. Adam bumps into a striped arm and reaches out past Beetlejuice, and Lydia glances to Barbara, baffled by her lack of a reaction.

"Look, I don't - can't a deadbeat just want to say hi to his ex-wife?" he patters, ignoring Adam against his side. "Show a little sympathy to a recent widow? You lost a mom _and_ a husband, jeez, Lydia, stop hogging all the tragedy, save some for the rest of us." A beat. "I realize now that joke crosses a line, because I know what loss feels like, or at least I'm assuming that's what I felt when I was _murdered_ , you know, I didn't have a lot of time to process those emotions. But the reader thought it was funny, am I right?"

"What?"

"Nothing." Another sigh, more genuine, less performative. "Can't a demon want to do something nice for his best friend?"

"We are _not_ best friends and I don't want--"

Lydia stops as Adam suddenly seizes, then relaxes, and her mouth falls open as Adam steps back, shakes himself, and reaches up to cup Beetlejuice's cheek. Beetlejuice lights up like a stray puppy being rescued in a YouTube video stolen and cropped and subtitled for Facebook likes.

Barbara hovers worriedly at Adam's shoulder, wringing her hands, following him to the bed. Lydia stares as he sits on top of the covers, looking back at her like she's hung Betelgeuse in the sky.

"Hey, Senora," he says gently, smiling, tears in his eyes. Lydia feels something stick in her throat.

" _Mom?_ "

Adam - her - a hand touches her hair, her cheek, taps her nose and then rests against her neck, thumb tracing her jawline. "I'm so sorry, Lydia. If I had known… I wanted to escape so badly that even - after, I was… lost, for a while. I heard you calling, but…"

"It's okay, mom," Lydia swears through tears, hands flying up to cover her mother's, and Emily-Adam pulls her close in an embrace, stroking her hair. The bed sinks a little more and Barbara rests a hand on her back, still, grounding. When Lydia blinks, tears spill over and her vision clears, and over Adam-Emily's shoulder Beetlejuice is watching her with a mixture of alarm and curiosity, tilting his head back and forth like a followup video with the rescue puppy where it can't figure out treats or grass or some other painfully normal thing because it grew up sad and lonely and weird.

Adam - Emily - Dead Mom - her mom pulls back, wipes away her tears, and holds her at arm's length like she's trying to commit the image of Lydia in her Billie Eilish shirt, red-eyed and sniffling, to memory. "I can't stay long," she says, mouth twisting in a regretful frown, and Lydia clutches at her arms.

"No - that's not fair," she cries, casting a pleading look at Barbara, a hateful glare at Beetlejuice. "I didn't - I don't even get to say goodbye," she chokes out, and her mother gathers her close as she rages. Lydia sobs so hard that she almost doesn't hear the strained apologies whispered into her hair, the promises to return if she can, the fears that she won't be allowed to and the hopes that Lydia will be able to live again knowing that somewhere out there, her mother still loves her.

Lydia shakes her head furiously, eyes squeezed shut, until Beetlejuice clears his throat. Warm hands frame her face and Lydia reluctantly opens her eyes. "Lydia," Adam-Emily-Dead Mom says, entreating, "I'll never really be gone."

Lydia takes a deep breath. "Goodbye, mom."

After a moment, the hands on her face falter, fall away, and then Adam pulls her into a fierce, uncompromising hug. Lydia flails a free arm until Barbara grabs it, wrapping around them both. She hiccups a sob, maybe a laugh, and over Adam's shoulder, Beetlejuice is still watching, lip curled in amused disgust.

"You look so gross right now," he says. "Like, three different bodily fluids are coming out of your nose." Then, "What's that look? Do you want to murder me?"

"I want to hug you, you idiot."

Beetlejuice recoils, clapping a hand to his mouth as he retches. After a pause, he heaves a few more times. He gulps and swallows.

"I'm not really the--" he starts once he's wiped his hand on his pants, but Barbara's head snaps up and he takes a sudden stiff, lumbering step forward, then another, until he's standing by the bed. "Barbara," he wheezes, voice strained, "are you inside me, that's _so hot_ \--"

He sits heavily on the bed and almost jumps up again before Lydia grabs him sideways, hugging his shoulders. He makes a strangled sound and freezes.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't looking for her, I was looking for my dad, so this is actually extremely inconvenient for me--"

"Stop talking."

"That's fair," he concedes, and stays silent, bearing the hug with obvious discomfort. Adam tries to pat his shoulder and ends up hoverhanding, and Barbara reaches for his knee before she reconsiders. "Is there like a time limit on these things," he asks after a minute, "because I feel like we've hit it, normally I live - heh - for social anxiety but only when I'm making others feel it. Is that what this is? Am I… feeling? … awkward?"

"Maybe it's good that you're feeling things," Adam suggests, looking to Barbara for support.

"Yeah, maybe you're… growing?"

"Babs, you can't keep feeding me setups like that," Beetlejuice says off-handedly, then, contemplatively, "huh," and then, at length, "I hate it." The Maitlands protest, but Lydia lets him go as he vaults from the bed, shaking himself off like that dog simile from before. "Nope, I'm gonna go have an existential crisis and murder some people." Louder protests. "Oh my _god_ it's just a phrase, like, I'd 'kill' to know the soft touch of Adam's hands on my--"

"Lawrence," Lydia says sternly, trying not to laugh, and Beetlejuice full-body cringes.

"This is the thanks I get," he huffs, and flounces in a dramatic turn back to the glowing outline of the door, which creaks open with a wave of his hand. He stops at the threshold and looks over his shoulder. "Just so you know, I was making great progress on _Beetlejuice 2: Left 4 Dad_ , working title, and this whole emotion thing is gonna set me way back, I'm gonna have to rework the whole plot, why do characters have to _develop_ in adaptations, why can't we just keep our tone deaf late eighties humor, you know, why do we have to _care_ and be _socially responsible_ , sure we were casually, deeply offensive back then but--"

Adam waves a hand and Beetlejuice stumbles, falling through the doorway with a squawk. The door grinds shut behind him.

" _The zeitgeist suuuuuuuucks_ ," he yells through the gap before it seals, and it echoes as the eerie green light fades.

"I'm sorry, Lydia," Adam apologizes, and he holds her at arm's length, then quickly drops his hands, uncomfortable with the symmetry. "He just showed up and we didn't want to listen to him but he said he found your mother and… was that weird? Are you okay?"

Lydia wipes her nose on the hem of her shirt and Adam clicks his tongue and reaches out, closing his hand around a box of tissues that flies across the room. Lydia takes a handful and blows her nose.

"It was weird," she admits, and Adam looks crestfallen. "But good weird. I think I need more good weird in my life."

Barbara tips her hand, making a _so-so_ gesture. "So on a scale of demon wedding to Harry Belafonte…"

"Closer to Harry," Lydia says, nodding, and the Maitlands relax enough to let her go back to sleep - but before she leaves, after she and Adam tuck Lydia in, Barbara slips a piece of chalk into Lydia's hand, and Lydia falls asleep with it fisted over her heart, knowing that her Dead Mom will never be far away.


End file.
